The Dane missed out on any meaningful dry running on Friday after a suspension failure in FP1 sidelined him in FP2 as well. With rain limiting him again in FP3, Magnussen came into qualifying having not completed a single flying lap on the super-soft tyres this weekend.

However, though Magnussen indeed failed to go beyond Q1 with his effort, he was quick enough to get the better of his team-mate Palmer to secure 17th on the grid. It was a result he was content with in the circumstances.

"I'm quite happy with all that really given that I haven't done any laps in the dry at all. The first time I saw the last corner.... It was not easy.

"We could've been in Q2 if I had known the track a bit better because it was only two hundredths so there were a few places where we could've improved. But this is our level and we can't be too disappointed when we know it's the beginning of a long project."

Palmer, on the other hand, was disappointed with his general lack of performance in the Renault RS16 as he laboured to 19th, nine tenths adrift of his team-mate.

"The first sector was ok then I just lost a huge amount of grip from the rear so, it's quite clear looking at the data that, that happened but we don't really have any explanation for it."

"I've been struggling with the car all weekend, but obviously we've not had the other car running to compare across the two. But now he's (Magnussen) is running it looks to be a hell of lot better. So we need to work out what's going on."